Allan Cup hanging on by a thread

Allan Cup hanging on by a thread

The senior hockey community has been scrambling to find a way to stay afloat after a disaster 2018-19 campaign. The year began B.C.’s only senior AAA club folding, before the Fort Saskatchewan Chiefs of the local ACHW followed suit.

Stony Plain Eagles forward Craig Bokenfohr finishes his check on Innisfail defenceman Blair Mulder during Game 3 of the Allan Cup Alberta series last season Innisfail and Stony Plain are the only two senior AAA teams remaining in the province after the defending Allan Cup champion Lacombe Generals Folded. Photo by Josh Thomas/Reporter/Examiner Staff.jpg, SB

Allan Cup hockey is on life support but the Stony Plain Eagles are refusing to pull the plug.

The club will ice a team despite their being no Allan Cup Hockey West league to play in.

“Senior hockey is dying. It really is,” said Eagles general manager Rob Sklaruk.

The senior hockey community has been scrambling to find a way to stay afloat after a disaster 2018-19 campaign. The year began B.C.’s only senior AAA club folding, before the Fort Saskatchewan Chiefs of the local ACHW followed suit.

Then, just days after securing the Allan Cup on home ice, the Lacombe Generals sent shockwaves through senior hockey by announcing they were closing up shop. The Rosetown Redwings quickly exited ACHW in favour of a league in Saskatchewan.

Now, Stony Plain and the Innisfail Eagles are left to pick up the pieces.

“We’re going to play a few exhibition games throughout the season and hopefully we can get that rivalry going for the fans. Then at the end of the year we’ll face them to go to the Allan Cup,” said Sklaruk.

There will be no ACHW regular season or playoffs. Instead, Stony Plain and Innisfail will face off in a best-of-seven at the end of the senior AA season for the right to represent the Pacific at the Allan Cup.

In the meantime, Sklaruk and the Eagles will be hard at work trying to set up an exhibition schedule to keep the group sharp and engaged with the community. Because there is no league, however, there is a lot more red tape the team will have to go through to see game action.

“Every game is not a league game. There’s a lot of paperwork that needs to be filled out for every game,” said Sklaruk. “Lacombe, Fort Saskatchewan and Rosetown dropping out of the league killed us. You can’t get away with two teams. You can get away with three, but you can’t get away with two.”

Another issue will be finding a willing opponent. There was little interest shown by any of the teams at the Senior AA level to allow either Innisfail or Stony Plain to join the North Central Senior Hockey League.

The Eagles will have to settle for one-off exhibition games, and even then teams are apprehensive to take on the challenge. Sklaruk, however, said this type of amalgamation is going to be necessary if the sport is going to survive.

“We don’t have the money to go down to Saskatchewan, Manitoba or Ontario. We’ve talked to Devon a couple times, and Morinville a couple times, but they’re afraid to play against us. They think they’re going to get blown out of the water, but the fact is, some of those teams are just as good as us,” said Sklaruk.

He added there is room for additional senior AAA clubs in communities like Calgary, Red Deer or Sylvan Lake, and he wants to see Fort Saskatchewan make a comeback.

“We need to start building our teams more from within our own communities. We need to get out of that AAA status and it just needs to become senior hockey. It would be nice if it was all senior hockey, and in February, you could make the decision to declare for the AA or AAA provincials,” said Sklaruk.

With Innisfail and Stony Plain holding on, the Allan Cup tournament itself will endure for at least one more season. The winner of their series will join teams from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and the Prairies in Hamilton and Dundas for the 2020 tournament from April 6-11.

After that, the status of the tournament is up in the air. Both teams in the province will run out of money fast if they’re taking yearly or even bi-annual trips across the country for one tournament, especially if they don’t have fans in the stands because they cannot book a game.

The two teams will play each other in exhibition action, but neither group wants to see each other upwards of 15 times over the course of one season. Without a Pacific representative, Sklaruk does not believe the tournament can continue.

“I don’t know if there’s going to be an Allan Cup in 2021,” said Sklaruk.